Brian Clark, an executive vice president at Euro Brokers, a brokerage firm that had offices on the 84th floor of 2 World Trade Center, was one of only four people to escape either tower from above the floors where the planes struck. In this interview for the NOVA program "Why the Towers Fell," assistant producer Matt Barrett simply let the camera roll as Clark told his astounding tale. Only slightly edited for clarity here, the interview reveals, in vividly recalled detail, how snap decisions, gut instinct, and a touch of luck worked together in Clark's favor and that of the man whose life he saved.

Like any normal day I arrived at about 7:15 in the morning. That particular day was more or less flawless weather -- beautiful day, blue sky. I don't remember the temperature, but we had an unseasonably warm fall, and I'm assuming that that day was equally pleasant.

I have been at Euro Brokers for over 29 years now. I started as a trainee broker in 1973, and for the last 14 or 15 years I've been in management. Most recently my title's been Executive Vice President. I've been one of several people who manage the company. One minor responsibility I had that turned out to be significant that day, however, was I was one of about eight or ten people that had volunteered to be a fire marshal.

The first plane

As I said, I arrived about 7:15 and got my morning coffee. I went about my normal chores. I don't really recall any extraordinary events that morning until 8:46 and change, when, sitting with my back to the west wall -- I had a private office, with my desk facing my door and my back to the window -- I heard an enormous thump. I didn't feel any vibration, but there was a noticeable sound like a boom or thump, and the lights buzzed for a second. My eyes jerked up to look at my overhead lights.

"The entire airspace behind me was filled with flame."

There was suddenly this glare, and my attention was immediately caught. I spun my head around, and the entire airspace behind me was filled with flame. I didn't know what it was at the time, but it was the fuel from the first jet hitting the North Tower that had gone right through that tower and out over the airspace, south of Tower One, the North Tower. That same airspace was west of the South Tower, the tower I was in on the 84th floor.

My immediate thought was there had been an explosion one or two floors above our office. That's what I thought had happened in that first instant. Being one of the fire marshals, I was equipped with a whistle and flashlight in my office. I jumped up, grabbed them, put the whistle around my neck, and more or less yelled, "Get out! Everybody get out!" This all took me five seconds. When I looked behind me out the window, the flames were all gone, and thousands of papers were just fluttering in the air, the edges of which were all on fire. It was like flaming confetti. Very strange.

I should have realized but didn't realize at the time that the area that all this was happening in was so huge. But I still wasn't computing that in my mind; still it was two floors up in my mind. So I ran out of my office, just a yard or two into an area where some accountants sit, and other people in offices, and I said, "Come on, let's go, there has been an explosion," and I started to get people off the floor.

Now, we are a trading operation. Our customers are not individuals, but large financial trading institutions around the world, like a Barclay's Bank or the Royal Bank of Canada. So we have in our trading floor many television sets tuned to financial news information. Well, all of these stations cut away to their news departments, and there were these breaking news stories that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. The story developed literally within minutes, and we understood fairly soon, I would say within three or four minutes, that an airliner had hit One World Trade Center. At least that's my recollection of the timeframe.

Well, we knew now that the damage had been done to Tower One, not our Tower, so we relaxed a little bit about evacuation. Nonetheless, many people in the first minute had bolted for the stairs and were on their way down. Good news in retrospect, but at the time it was like, Oh boy, I guess we don't have to leave. The TV sets were telling us, and now there were photographs of One World Trade Center and the smoke coming out of the upper floors, I think the 92nd floor and above. The fire marshals like myself were content to let people go or stay. Really, in a way, it didn't matter.

I called my wife and told her, "You know, you won't believe this but Tower One has been hit. We are fine where we are. Relax, turn on the TV, there is a developing story there, find out what's happening."

The announcement

At about five minutes to nine there was an announcement by the Port Authority within our building. First the strobe lights flashed, as they did during their normal fire drills. The alarm system gave a little bit of a whoop whoop, you know, to alert you to an announcement about to be made. Then the very familiar voice, the one we heard all the time, came over the system and said, "Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building Two. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may return to your office by using the re-entry doors on the re-entry floors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building Two is secure...."

"'Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building Two.'"

And they went through the whole story again. So this was reinforcement that there was no need to evacuate. I am strictly guessing but I would think we were perhaps down to about 25 people left on our floor at the time of the announcement. (I had gone for a walk through our office.) Now, as I say, the pressure was off, and there wasn't a panic, although we were greatly concerned about what was going on in Tower One.

If you went to the north wall windows, you could look up and see the flames and the smoke and regrettably people now starting to jump, because of heat, smoke, or whatever it was. I'm only telling this secondhand because I personally could not take myself to the window to view that. I just didn't want that image burned in my brain, and I'm forever grateful that I didn't go and take in that sight.

One girl in particular -- Susan her name was -- turned from the window when she noticed the first person for her jump. She hadn't noticed it before, and she spun around in tears almost frantically, ran to me, and said "Oh, Brian, it's terrible. People are dying." I said, "Susan, it's a terrible tragedy," and I put my arms around her, and I said "Come on, let's get you more composed," and we walked out of the trading floor down the hall. In the building the center core was crossed hallways. There was a north-south hallway and an east-west hallway. I walked with her from the east side through the center core to the west side, where the ladies room was, and she went into the ladies room. (Regrettably, Susan did not survive the eventual collapse of the building.)

The second plane

I continued on to the west side near my office. I was fairly near the windows talking with two or three people, including especially Bobby Coll. I was looking him in the eye having a conversation with him when at apparently 9:03 -- I didn't check my watch -- the second plane hit the south side of our building at approximately the 78th, 79th, and 80th floors. Our room fell apart at that moment, a complete destruction without an explosion -- very strange things. The lights went out, but we were near the window so there was daylight. Again, there was this sort of thump, this explosion without fire and flame, a very strange sensation.

"I just felt in my heart, Oh my gosh, we are going over."

There was a twist, if you like, to the building when it got hit, and therefore the plane's hitting explained some things to me later, like why the ceiling fell apart. The ceiling tiles and some of the brackets and so on fell; some air conditioning ducts, speakers, cables, and things like that that were in the ceiling fell. I seem to have a sense that some of the floor tiles even buckled a bit or were moved. Some of the walls, I recall vaguely, were actually torn in a jagged direction rather then up and down. Again perhaps explained by the torque, some of the door frames popped out of the wall and partially fell or fully fell.

For seven to ten seconds there was this enormous sway in the building. It was one way, and I just felt in my heart, Oh my gosh, we are going over. That's what it felt like. Now, on windy days prior to that there was a little bit of a sway to the building. You got used to it; you didn't notice it. The window blinds would go clack clack as they swung. As I said, for a good seven to ten seconds I thought it was over -- horrible feeling -- but then the building righted itself. It didn't sway back and forth; it just went one way, it seemed, and then back, and we were stable again.

I was looking at Bobby Coll square in the eyes, and we knew in an instant that it was terrorism. I mean, there wasn't for sure terrorism on people's minds when the first building had been hit. Was it pilot error? Was it instrument error? Or just a one-off suicide? Horrible as it was, you didn't know for certain that it was terrorism. But when the second building got hit you instantly calculated the two of them: terrorism.

The evacuation

So we knew we were in a difficult situation at that point in time. I fortunately had a flashlight with me, and I'm glad I did. I switched it on, and we started out of the room. Our room was not black with smoke but sort of white with chalky construction dust. It was incredibly dusty and dirty as we made our way out of the room and over some debris that had fallen from the ceiling and so on past the ladies room where I had taken Susan maybe 10 minutes earlier, and we went to this center core, this crossroads in the middle of the building.

At that point, had we gone three or four yards straight ahead to the east, we would have come to Stairway B. I have no idea what condition it was in because we didn't know what had happened, we didn't know where this plane had hit, we didn't know if it was a plane, we didn't know anything other than suddenly we were in chaos and our building had been hit. I could have turned right three yards to Stairway C, closer to the impact point. I had no idea what condition that stairway was in. Miraculously, at random I turned left to Stairway A, which on the floor plate is the farthest from where the impact really was.

"'Help! Help! I'm buried. I can't breathe. Is anybody there?'"

So we started down that stairway. We only went three floors. There was a group of seven of us, myself and six others. I remember some of the names. Now, I know everybody at Euro Brokers, but in my mind somehow I blanked out who those other grey shapes were; they were farther up the stairs a bit, not in the light of the flashlight. I do remember Bobby Coll, Kevin York, David Vera, and Ron DiFrancesco.

We met two people that had come up from the 80th floor, a heavy-set woman and by comparison a rather frail male companion of hers, a workmate. She was saying from the landing below, "Stop, stop you've got to go up," and she labored up to join us, moving very slowly; she was such a big woman. She said, "You've got to go up. You can't go down. There is too much smoke and flames below." I had my flashlight, and I was shining it in each face as people made comments, and an argument ensued as to what we should do.

The rescue

At the same moment as this argument was going on I heard bang, bang, bang, thump, thump, thump, "Help! Help! I'm buried. I can't breathe. Is anybody there? Can you help me?," a strange voice coming from within the 81st floor. I heard this voice, and it caused me to lose concentration in this argument that was going on about whether to head up or down. I grabbed Ron by the sleeve, and I said "Come on, Ron. Let's get this fellow."

The fire escape door had blown away from the wall a bit, but we were able to push the dry wall back and step between the door frame and the dry wall, squeeze onto the 81st floor, which was in darkness, but again I had my flashlight. I scanned the room, and I said, "Who's there? Where are you?" He said, "Oh, I can see your light."

What my light beam was showing me was similar to being on a very foggy road at night, because it was white dust everywhere. He said, "No, to the right ... to the left ..." In about a minute, Ron and I located his voice. He said, "Can you see my hand?" His hand was sticking out of the wall, or not the wall but this area where he was covered and blocked by some debris. He was waving his hand frantically, and my light picked up his hand. I said, "Okay, see you now."

And at that moment my associate Ron who came down with me was overcome with smoke. He had a gym bag or a briefcase with him, and he was sort of putting it in front of his face in an attempt to filter the air. It clearly wasn't working, and Ron, with eyes shut, backed off the floor. He was almost completely overcome by the smoke.

Again, miraculously, I was in a bubble. I was breathing fine. I was squinting a bit, but I could work, and I struggled to get debris away from Stanley -- I found out later his name was Stanley Praimnath; he worked at Fuji Bank.

We got to the point I couldn't do any more work from my side, and I said, "You've got to jump. You've got to get over this last barrier." Well, he jumped once and fell back down. I said, "Come on, you've got to do this. It's the only way out." I reached in again, and Stanley jumped, and I got him by the collar or the shoulder or somewhere there. He said later that I just pulled him up like Superman. I don't remember having this extraordinary strength, but he says it really did happen that way. I pulled him out and onto me, and we fell in a heap and embraced. It was an exciting moment, it really was.

"'I had to see my wife. I had to see my kids at all costs.'"

Now, Ron had gone. He had gone back to the stairway and was not there when we got back to the stairs. The other people had gone up as I left with Ron to go in on the 81st floor. I had this vision of Bobby Coll and Kevin York each with a hand under each elbow of this heavy-set woman starting to ascend the stairs, saying things like, "Come on. We are in this together. We will help you. Relax, we'll be with you." And up they went. And Dave Vera, who had a walkie-talkie, started back up the stairs as well. That's the last I saw of those people.

Now, I didn't know whether Ron had gone up or down, I assumed down because he was with me going down. I learned later that Ron went up; in fact, he went all the way up to the 91st floor. He later told me that he lay on the floor there for 10 minutes until he panicked. He told me, "I had to see my wife. I had to see my kids at all costs. I was gonna make it out." And he went to the stairway and went all the way down, following me, I guess, by five to seven minutes, because I took my time going down the stairway. It was not intentional; it was just that some events happened.

The descent

So Stanley and I went back to the stairs on the 81st floor, and we began down. The first five floors were difficult, because in certain areas dry wall had been blown off the wall and was lying propped up against the railing. We had to move it, shove it to the side. The sprinkler system had turned on and had started to do something, but it wasn't doing its job as it should, so there was water sloshing down the stairways. It was dark.

Now, the stairways didn't go straight down. There was one particular area around the 78th floor, I think, where you actually came to some strange twists. So we had to figure that out in the darkness, but we made some fortunate decisions. Around the 74th floor, I would say, we broke into what I call fresh air. The lights were on. It was normal conditions. There was not a problem breathing, and there was nobody there, not a soul, just Stanley and me. We were starting to have normal conversation. He was cut and bruised a bit, but he was fine conversing. I think he had his shirt off; he was just in his undershirt.

We continued on down. On the 68th floor, we met one man walking up. The man's name was Jose Marrero. He worked for Euro Brokers for many years. He worked in our security department, and he was also one of our fire marshals. Jose, I learned later, had been with many people of ours all the way down into the 30s and 40s on the stairway and figured, I guess, that he had done his job. Then he heard Dave Vera, who had started down with me, on his walkie-talkie saying that he needed help; he was helping people, could he get help.

"He was tending to a Caucasian male lying flat on the floor moaning in pain, with massive head wounds."

So Jose, hero that he was, was walking up, perspiring, carrying his walkie-talkie. He said, "Oh, I can hear Dave above. I'm gonna help." I said, "Jose, Dave's a big boy, he can get out. We've just come through hell to get here. Come on down with us." "No, no, no," he said. "I'll be fine. I can help." Then Jose kept marching up. Jose was about 35 years old and quite fit, but when I passed him he was understandably laboring to climb the stairs. But he kept going. I don't know how high he got or what he found.

Stanley and I continued down until we got to the 44th floor -- straight shot, saw nobody. On the 44th floor we went off, because I knew that was one of the sky lobbies in the Trade Center. There were sky lobbies on the 44th and 78th floors. Conditions on the 44th floor were normal other than there was nobody there, except for one -- I'm guessing at his age -- middle 60s, maybe 70s even Port Authority security guard who was tending to a Caucasian male lying flat on the floor moaning in pain, with massive head wounds. The security guard was saying, "I need help. My phones don't work, but I need medical attention for this man. I'll stay with him, I'll tend him, but you must promise to get help as soon as you can telephone somebody." Stanley and I said "okay" and went back to the stair.

The conference room

We went down again. Nobody on the stairway at all. Easy travel, just the two of us. Lights on, fresh air all the way down to the 31st floor, where we went in at random and got into somebody's office. I don't know whether it was an advertising agency or a lawyer's office; I don't know whose it was. We got into their conference room, and each grabbed a phone.

I called my wife to tell her here's where I am; we'll have this great celebration at home. I hadn't talked to her since about five to nine, I suppose, and this was about 20 to 10. My wife had turned on the TV, and the first thing she had seen was the second plane slam into our building. So she had no idea where I was for that 45-minute stretch. I told her I was fine. Stanley talked to his wife, told her similar news.

I then called 9-1-1 -- coincidence 9/11 -- and was put on hold. This was a disturbing thing at the time. I got ahold of them right away and told them about this fellow on the 44th floor that needed medical attention, but they put me on hold. They said, "You must tell your story to somebody higher up the chain" and clicked me off. I'd wait until somebody came on, I'd recite the story, and "Oh, just a minute. You must tell somebody else." I mean, there was something clearly odd about what was going on there. They were answering the phone in a hurry, and I understand now they were completely overwhelmed at the time.

I was asked for a third time to tell somebody else my story, and I just laid down the law. I said, "No. I have given you the details. Here they are one more time," and I wouldn't let that person off the phone. I said, "I'm gonna tell you this once, and then I'm hanging up." I went through the details about the 44th floor, man on the ground, need a medic, need a stretcher, goodbye." I put down the phone. I don't feel badly about that but it was a strange, strange event in the midst of this whole story. We were probably in that conference room for four minutes I would think, and then it was back to the stairs.

The ground floor

Now, bear in mind we had no idea that the building was about to fall. We were taking our time. In fact, I said to Stanley at one point, "Hey, let's not go too fast here. I'd hate to break an ankle and have to walk 30 floors or something." So we took our time getting down. We went all the way down, again with nobody on the stairs, not firemen coming up, nobody else evacuating. So all the way down to the Plaza level. We came out by what's known as the "half-price ticket booth," where they sold theater tickets for half price. This was on the north side of the South Tower facing the Plaza.

"It looked like it had been deserted for 100 years, and we had just discovered it."

We came out and stared, awestruck. What we looked at was normally a flowing fountain, vendors with their wagons, business people coming to and from the building, tourists everywhere. It was a beautiful people place, yet this area, several acres I'm sure, was dead; it was a moonscape. It looked like it had been deserted for 100 years, and we had just discovered it.

It was surreal, the whole thing was surreal. We stared at it for 20 or 30 seconds with our jaws dropped, saying, "What is happening here, this is very strange." We went down an escalator that wasn't working -- all electricity was off, other than the emergency electricity, I guess, in the stairway -- and through some revolving doors, because the women at the bottom of the escalator said to us, "If you're gonna leave the building you have to go this way, through there, and go down to the Victoria Secret shop, turn right, and exit by the Sam Goody store."

We knew where that was, so we walked very casually down that hallway, down the second hallway, and we were passing firemen and policemen who were going about their business, walking normal speeds. I didn't sense there was panic. It looked like they were under control, doing their job. There were other evacuees like Stanley and me, but there was no running or crowds. It was more or less deserted.

The street

We got out to the south exit of Four World Trade Center on the southeast corner of the complex. Firemen and policemen stood at the door. One said, "Whoa, wait a minute fellows, if you are gonna cross Liberty Street, you had better go for it. There is debris falling from above." I recall saying, "Should I look up?" He said, "Well, I wouldn't. Just go for it."

I couldn't make myself do that. I crept out under the eaves, and I cautioned a look up this way and that way, and I said, "All right, Stanley, I don't see anything coming. Are you ready?" He said, "Yup," and after one more check, I said, "All right, let's go," and we ran across Liberty Street, which is quite wide at that point, several lanes. There was nobody there. It was very much like a demilitarized zone. There was no traffic. There were some emergency vehicles around but certainly no movement and really not very many people; people were noticeably absent.

Across the road you could see some people standing in doorways protecting themselves from anything that might have been falling. We ran across the street, past the fire hall, which is on the corner, and up another block and caught our breath. There was a deli owner there. I said, "Have you got any water?" He went in and just handed us this water in bottles and said, "Here you go." I said, "Thank you." He said, "In fact, here is a breakfast platter. I don't think anybody is going to be picking that up." And he gave me this great tray with some fresh fruit on it and some sweet rolls. He was a very generous fellow at the time considering the conditions.

I carried this with me another block to the west side of Trinity Church, where we met a couple of ministers. That's when Stanley broke down. He cried to these ministers, "This man saved my life." He completely broke down. I was overcome with emotion as well, and I said, "You know, Stanley, you may think I saved your life but I think you saved my life, too. You got me out of that argument as to whether I should go up or go down. I'm here, and I'm fine, and it's because of your voice in the darkness that I made it." We embraced, and the ministers had a quick prayer, and one of them said, "You know, the church is open if you would like to go in there."

The collapse

Stanley and I looked at each other, and we nodded and said, "All right, let's do that." So we walked to the south side of Trinity Church, which is a street that slopes up. As we walked up it we got higher and higher, and with the wall in relation to us going lower, we could now turn around and see the World Trade Center. We grabbed onto the fence railing of the cemetery and looked through the grate up at the Trade Center, and Stanley said to me, "You know, I think those buildings could go down." I said, "There is no way. Those are steel structures. That's furniture and paper and carpeting and draperies and things like that that are burning." But I didn't finish the sentence when Tower Two started to slide down.

I would say that we'd been out of the building maybe five minutes when the building collapsed. It disappeared into its own dust. What I thought had happened at that instant was only the top third or quarter of the building down to the fire line had collapsed. It was a horrible feeling. I mean, our whole escape was horrible when it was happening, but you at least thought people had a chance -- until that moment. Then I knew that certainly in the top quarter of the tower there was no chance. We just stared at it in awe, not realizing what was happening completely.

We stared, watching, with nobody running or anything initially. But then this great tsunami of dust came over the church. Everybody looked up, and, as in a disaster movie, everybody started running in fear of the debris and dust that might be in there. But I knew there was nothing solid that was going to harm me, that the building hadn't fallen over. I knew that. But you didn't want to breathe the junk that was in there, so we ran down Broadway to 42 Broadway. We went into that building as the dust and smoke was catching up to our backsides. We got into that lobby with many other people, strangers doing the same thing. The air was clean in there, and people were milling around.

"I yelled and looked and walked back and forth but he was gone."

I realized then that I was still carrying the silly fruit platter, so I plumped that down on the reception desk there, and people started digging into it. It was an odd thing that I didn't just chuck it aside when I was running. I wasn't even aware that I was carrying it.

We stayed for at least half an hour, I suppose. The ash settled. We went out the east side of that building, which was onto New Street. It was like a winter's day, grey sky. I suppose it was a quarter of an inch of dust and ash everywhere, but it looked like freshly fallen fine snow. We walked in amazement down the street. I was still thinking, of course, that only the top part of the tower had slid off or slid into itself or something like that. No cell phones, no land lines were working. There was no way to communicate with anybody by telephone.

We wandered over to the east side of Manhattan, the East River. Stanley gave me his business card, and thank goodness he did, because in the crowd that was walking, he and I suddenly got parted. He just disappeared into the crowd. I yelled and looked and walked back and forth but he was gone. I was very grateful I had his business card at that point, because I knew that he was real. My initial thought was, Whoa, this was an angel; this didn't happen. It was a strange feeling that slipped over me. But, hey, I had his business card, so I knew he was real.

The ferry

I wandered up FDR Drive on the east side of the island, thinking I was going to have to walk to mid-town to somehow get home to northern New Jersey where I live. But in this fog, in this white, wintry day, I heard someone on a bullhorn, "Next ferry for Jersey City." That's strange, I thought. I didn't even know there were ferries over here. Well, what the ferry company had done was reroute their ferries to the east side of the island; there's a pier over there, Pier 11. I thought, This is wonderful.

I jumped on that ferry. They certainly weren't charging. We sailed around the southern tip of Manhattan, up the Hudson River, and as we got parallel to the World Trade Center -- the wind was blowing from north to south that day -- it was then that I and many other people realized for the first time that both towers were completely down.

"This building I had worked in for 27 years was gone."

I also realized that the first hint that I'd had of the second tower, that is, Tower One, coming down was when I had gotten on that ferry 15 minutes earlier, because a black cloud had enveloped the boat as I was getting on it. It was noticeable that with the South Tower, the one that fell first, the ensuing ash was white and grey, whereas with the second tower that fell, the North Tower, it was black. Now, if that was because it burned longer or what I don't know, but it was a noticeable difference.

But as we got parallel we could look over and see that both towers were gone. It was just a surreal feeling. Disbelief. How could this happen? Of course, at the time we knew nothing about the planes being hijacked, nothing about the Pentagon, nothing about the plane going down in Pennsylvania, or the FAA getting all planes out of the air. We were completely in the dark. But we could look off to the Trade Center on our right and see that this building I had worked in for 27 years was gone. It was a staggering thought. There was silence. People just couldn't believe it.

The homecoming

We sailed in silence to Harborside in Jersey City and got off the ferry. Well, I ran to the ticket booth. I think I was the first person there. I asked the lady if I could use the phone, and she said, "Absolutely." I called my wife, and I could hear the cheers back at home. This is now about 11:15, I think, and my building came down sometime around 10 a.m. The last time I had talked to my wife was at about 20 to 10, so for over an hour and a half she had no idea where I was. Certainly for an hour and 15 minutes she had seen the tower down and was quite beside herself.

Fortunately, the house was full of people. My wife, Dianne, had some neighbors there, members of our church, our minister. My older son, his wife and three children were there, along with my older daughter and my younger son and his fiancé. My youngest daughter is at school in Toronto, so she wasn't there, but it was a house full of people. So when I called, there was a great cheer of relief and just agony relieved.

They wanted to come and get me. I said, "Well, look, I know the traffic in the area will be horrible." So I ended up, with hundreds of other people, walking about a mile north. I was pretty tired at this point, but I walked that mile to the Hoboken train terminal. As I walked into the terminal at five to noon, there was an announcement that the 11:30 train, which had been delayed, would be leaving in five minutes. "All aboard for such and such a station," which was the station I needed to go to. So there was another bit of luck. I got on the train, and it left five minutes later.

I rode all the way to my station, got in my car, and drove the next 15 minutes to my home. When I hit the driveway, I honked the horn awfully loudly many times. There was then a front lawn full of tears and a reunion, and then for days the telephone didn't stop ringing. It was friends from all over the world, media, widows. (You know, we wouldn't call them widows at the time; their husbands were missing.)

Now, Ronnie, who I told you had gone up to the 91st floor and later told me he panicked and went down, when he exited the building it was at the very time when Tower Two was starting to fall. So the moment I was watching the building from Trinity Church was exactly the moment he was coming out of the same place I did, and he was caught in an explosion. He heard the explosion, swirled around, and a fireball was rushing at him from right at the doors where he was about to leave the building.

"We lost 61 friends -- dear friends that we worked with and laughed with for years."

He put his hands up in front of his face and got blown many, many yards across Liberty Street, which I'd run across earlier. He was severely burned in the arm, he had head wounds, cracked vertebrae. He doesn't remember really what happened right after that, but he ended up at St. Vincent's Hospital. They called his wife and told her he was fine, but she was unable to get to him for a couple of days because all the routes and tunnels were closed; they weren't allowing access back into Manhattan.

He didn't remember much those first several days, but he is now back at work on a part-time basis recovering and doing a great job. He's one of the heroes in my mind, because of that determination to get out.

That's my story. It was a long, horrific day, but for me it turned out all right. For many others, I'm deeply saddened that they aren't here. We lost 61 people in total, some of whom I think were either caught in elevators coming back to the office or had come back to the office. We'll never know for sure whether it was a wingtip and flames that caused their demise right on the 84th floor in the east side of the building, where a lot of our traders were, or whether it was smoke when they went higher, or whether it was the collapse of the building. Nonetheless, as I say, we lost 61 friends -- dear friends that we worked with and laughed with for years.

Editor's Note: Brian Clark serves as chairman of the Euro Brokers Relief Fund, which the company established to look after the families of Euro Brokers employees who died on September 11th.

The guy in the following story, Mike McQuade, is actually my first cousin, twice removed, though Ive only met him two or three times in my life. My father forwarded the story to me months after it was printed.

Survivor helps others before fleeing towers

Home News Tribune 9/14/01 Jonathan Tamari Mike McQuade had no idea how much danger he was in.

McQuade, a Sayerville resident working on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center's north tower when it was attacked Tuesday, stopped along his way out of the building to help people trapped in elevators, get water for firemen and call his family. He finally left more than an hour after the plane hit, just minutes before the tower collapsed.

"To tell you the truth there was no time when I thought I was going to die. If I had thought that I would have been a mental case," McQuade said. "My biggest fear was leaving someone behind who I could have helped."

McQuade, 35, said many people inside didn't realize how severe the damage was, or that the towers were in danger of crumbling. He passed people who had decided to wait for rescuers and probably didn't escape. Others stopped to rest on landings. McQuade, an electrician, escaped with co-worker Anthony Vangeli.

"God had to be watching me because we both have 3 kids," McQuade said. "When we got out we looked at Tower 2 not there and thought, 'how could it be?' "

McQuade was on the side of the tower opposite the plane's point of impact.

"It sounded like a freight train and the whole building shook. A flame shot down the outside of the building - I didn't know what the hell it was."

The impact had blown the doors off of elevators and created small fires around the floor. McQuade and Vangeli waited for smoke to clear before starting down a flight of stairs.

"People were calm," McQuade said. They didn't know what had caused the impact and fire, and quietly went down stairs.

At the 82nd floor McQuade stopped to join a group helping trapped elevator passengers. The passengers sent the group away, but one man chose to stay behind, McQuade said.

He continued down the stairs, running into people he had met during his two years working on the World Trade Center's electricity. He passed an 87-year-old electrician who had worked at the tower when it was built, McQuade said.

"I'm not sure, but I have a feeling he didn't make it."

On the 52nd floor McQuade and Vangeli figured they were out of danger. They got water and called their families. His boss, who had seen the second plane hit, called McQuade's cellular phone.

"He said, 'Get the hell out of the building, what are you waiting for?' " McQuade said. He didn't take a direct route out, though. On the 44th floor he met a man looking for help and went back up six flights to aid more people stuck in elevators. He took a working elevator down to 44 and met firefighters on the 38th floor.

McQuade and Vangeli got them water and told them about the working elevator.

"It bothers me because I don't think they made it out," he said. When the firefighters told McQuade that a fireball had torn through the lobby, he feared for a co-worker who had gone for coffee minutes before the attack.

"My heart dropped and I said, 'she's dead.' "

At the ninth floor McQuade felt "a big suction and then there was an explosion - it must have been when Tower 2 went down." He overheard firefighters screaming for an evacuation. McQuade passed abandoned fire trucks and ambulances as he left the building. About 10 minutes after he left the tower, it collapsed.

McQuade took a ferry back to Sandy Hook where emergency personnel waited.

"You would think it was after D-Day with everything all covered in smoke, jets flying over; we thought it was a dream," he said. Relatives from all over New Jersey, including his daughters aged 10, 7 and 2, met McQuade at home. He heard from two co-workers who escaped unharmed.

At 7:30 Wednesday morning a phone call woke McQuade. It was the woman who had left for coffee.

I don't know exactly when it was taken, but I tried to remember where the sun usually is during the day in September (I paint, so I do pay attention to those things) and I'd say it was no earlier than noon or one. The big dust cloud had cleared, for one thing. The sun is still to the east, but just barely, and the shadows on the western side of the building are very short. It has to be later than ten-thirty in the morning.

Also, this picture was HUGE and very detailed so I cut it down before posting it on your thread. If you open it up, you can see that the WFC is pretty badly torn up on the side that faced the towers, and there's a big hole in the roof of the Winter Garden, along with what appears to be white smoke inside. The fire in there may have already been over, or just beginning. I'm not sure of the destruction timeline for the Winter Garden, and I don't even remember hearing anything about it until the following day.

So what are your thoughts on the show? It was very well done but I have to say that it really #@$%ed me up, once again. They were showing footage that I hadn't seen since that day. Like the blond reporter saying "We are here, as close as we can possibly get to the World Trade Towers" and the cameraman panning up JUST as Tower Two started to go.

I have it on tape, and will try to watch it again today. I was at the Marriot for three days in late August for a convention (my last trip to the area), and it's become something of an obsession for me to find that building in the disaster footage, at the point before it was completely destroyed. I saw it three times during the "9/11" documentary. There were these hideously big "bites" taken out of the building after the first tower fell, and when Tower One came down it obliterated everything but about three stories on the souther end. That was where that lovely bar was located.

I don't know why I do this to myself, it just seems important to get the physical layout all set in my mind. It was so disturbing to look at Ground Zero on television and not be able to orient myself visually to something as basic as north and south. It was that unrecognizable.

Why did a third building; 7 World Trade Center, a 47th story building implode?

Again, huge fires fueled by massive diesel tanks meant for emergency generators led to to the collapse. These tanks were set on fire sometime during the collapses or the plane impacts. The tanks were directly underneath a transfer beam that supported some 40+ stories of structure above it. Much in the same way the building in OKC fell after a key column was blown away, 7 WTC fell after this main transfer beam failed, leading to the collapse of a key major column. When this collapsed, the entire building went. Again, your nominal 2 hours of fireproofing burnt off after 2 hours. Rememeber this building did not collapse until late in the afternoon.

My uncle's best friend was at a breakfast meeting at Windows on the World that day (he didn't even work in the building). He apparently fled the restaurant right after Tower One was hit. The last anyone heard from him was when he called a relative to say he was all right, and he was on, IIRC, the 87th floor waiting for an elevator down--you have to change from local to express at certain points.

My fiance's second cousin worked on the 101st floor of Tower Two, and also decided to get the hell out right after the first impact. She also called her mother from the 87th floor to say she was all right, and on her way out as soon as she could get on an elevator--and she did get on one. From what I heard later through the family grapevine, the second plane must have hit just before her elevator reached the lobby, because when the elevator doors opened there were burned people in the lobby. Everyone was directed outside somehow, and it took her hours and hours to get home. Her mother didn't know if she was alive or dead until late in the afternoon.

I had met my uncle's friend and this second cousin of my fiance's about two times apiece, so it's not like I knew them well. And they didn't know each other at all. But I have thoughts about them that I can't get rid of, because they were both on the same floor at the same time, waiting for elevators and making calls to let loved ones know they were okay. One made it out to safety and one didn't. I have this scenario in my head that the gentleman, who was a real gentleman, is standing right next to the cousin in the crowd near the elevators, and says something to the extent of "No, you go ahead; ladies first..."

I would like to tell the story of another hero. My brother Major Steve Long was at a meeting at the pentagon on sept, 11 he volenteered to be there, which makes me believe in fate, he didnt even work there , when the plane hit he was on the second floor in the front, he survived,the military told us that when the plane hit it knocked them all down and the lights went out they said my brother was so strong and his voice was so loud that his voice lead people out. He stayed to long . His autopsy report says he suvived for a half an hour , can you imagine what he saw that day. He died of carbon monoide poisioning and went down with the wall. It was six long days before we heard his fate. What a hero. He was an airborne Ranger and would have died gladly for his country, he has been first into everything since Grenadade , I finally felt safe with him in D.C. I hope as a nation we never forget.Sorry about the writing as my hands shake as I write this .I miss you Steve everyday is a struggle to get through. God Bless you Pesident Bush

Again, huge fires fueled by massive diesel tanks meant for emergency generators led to to the collapse. These tanks were set on fire sometime during the collapses or the plane impacts. The tanks were directly underneath a transfer beam that supported some 40+ stories of structure above it. Much in the same way the building in OKC fell after a key column was blown away, 7 WTC fell after this main transfer beam failed, leading to the collapse of a key major column. When this collapsed, the entire building went. Again, your nominal 2 hours of fireproofing burnt off after 2 hours. Rememeber this building did not collapse until late in the afternoon.

Yes - what you state is very plausible.

My thesis is that had other methods of insulating the steel columns been used (i.e., concrete encased steel columns, or wet asbestos), the buildings would have stayed up longer.

Those methods generally would provide 4 hours of protection, less in the case of the WTC bombings because of the inordinate amount of heat.

What happened as reported by the New York Times 4/28/1970 was that the construction companies were ordered to stop using wet asbestos (the were up to the 67th floor at the time with insulation), they immediately found a new technique (they couldn't use the older concrete encased steel beams technique at this point) which was "claimed" was just as good.

BTW - Today's Newsday (New York Long Island newspaper), carried an article about the collapse of the towers and mentions the effectiveness (or lack of), of the fireproofing.

I think in the future you may see 4hour rated fireproofing (concrete cladding)applied in a more common fashion although it is very expensive. The new AOL Time Warner building in NYC is in fact cladding key columns with concrete to provide additional steel protection. This additional protection was added after the 9/11 attacks and is above and beyond current fire protection requirements.

I attended a fire safety luncheon yesterday, specifically regarding fire rated glass technology which is improving. Someone asked a question if say 2 hour rated glazing (Very expensive $200/sf and 3 inches thick, it's amazing stuff, actually it's a ceramic. Many new government buildings are using it. It can burn on one side for hours and you can put your hand on the other side which remains cool.) had been used,would it have made a difference in the WTC. The speaker who was there to sell his product said no.

Even if you had a 4 hour rating, I still think both towers would have eventually collapsed as it is impossible to fight a fire that big in that tall a building. Whether or not asbestos was used is a moot question. Perhaps more people might have escaped, but I think the buildings still would have failed. That's why 7 WTC came down. An uncontrolled fire burning for several hours will collapse a steel building. Buildings are simply not designed to withstand fires of that magnitude and modern aircraft impacts.

The authorities should concentrate on keeping from aircraft being used as guided missiles, and improving evacuation routes in buildings. I think you may see new rules calling for better protection of stairwells using solid CMU walls instead of fire rated sheetrock. There will also be more attention paid to the weakest link in steel construction. At the WTC attention is focused on the clips connecting the floor trusses to the perimieter columns, likely the point of failure for most of the trusses. You will also see engineering design focus on redundant structure. 7 WTC and the OKC buildings collapsed after key structural members were destroyed resulting in catostrophic failure. On the other hand the WTC stood up after having gaping holes punched in it because it in fact had redundant structure. What brought down the towers was a combination of fire, damage, and increased stresses as floors failed in the fire, trusses separated from the walls, and perimeter columns eventually buckled under the weight.

My thesis is that had other methods of insulating the steel columns been used (i.e., concrete encased steel columns, or wet asbestos), the buildings would have stayed up longer.

Again with the revisionist history!

Your thesis was this:

WTC collapsed because the towers were built "on the cheap".

This is typical of the liberal/luddite, blame the man, evil corporation thesis that anti-capitalist statists like yourself always wallow in.

The fact of the matter is that maybe the asbestos insulation (which was prohibited by unnecessary, environmentalist-driven law, not economics) would have helped the buildings stand a little longer. Maybe not. Either way, they still would have fallen in roughly the same time frame.

Despite your thesis, the building were not built on the cheap. The just released FEMA report (which is considerably more relevant than a single article in the NYTs from 1970) found no substandard structural problems with the WTC construction, and in many cases the towers surpassed building code requirements.

Despite your thesis, the building were not built on the cheap. The just released FEMA report (which is considerably more relevant than a single article in the NYTs from 1970) found no substandard structural problems with the WTC construction, and in many cases the towers surpassed building code requirements.

In 1970 there were essentially two methods of protecting steel beams from a fire; encasing the steel beam in concrete or the newer, more cost-effective method, asbestos.

When asbestos was banned in 1970, and concrete encased steel beams were not an option, as the WTC were at around the 67th floor; "suddenly" a new method to insulate the steel beams was invented.

Yes the WTC most likely would have eventually imploded, but I believe the towers would have stayed up longer had asbestos been used.

When asbestos was banned in 1970, and concrete encased steel beams were not an option, as the WTC were at around the 67th floor; "suddenly" a new method to insulate the steel beams was invented.

That's not the same as being "built on the cheap", which was what you claimed. The builders had fully intended to use asbestos all the way up, and were prevented.

What proof do you have that the alternative fireproofing was "cheaper" than the asbestos they had planned to use in the first place? If it was a "new" process it could very well have been more expensive. Where's your comparative cost analysis for both materials in 1970? Let's see it.

In any case, the fireproofing would have been perfectably adequate for a FIRE. The problem, if you saw the show last night, was that the impact and subsequent explosion blasted the fireproofing right off the steel in the impact zone, so its effectiveness was a moot point. And the other fire-suppression methods failed as well. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. It wasn't just the coating on the steel.

That's not the same as being "built on the cheap", which was what you claimed. The builders had fully intended to use asbestos all the way up, and were prevented.

When the builders were prevented from using asbestos, they had three choices:

1. Encase the steel beams in concrete (much too expensive as the buildings were now at the 67th floor level).

2. Stop building above the 67th floor.

3. "Invent" a new method of fireproofing the steel beams.

Choice 3 was made.

What proof do you have that the alternative fireproofing was "cheaper" than the asbestos they had planned to use in the first place? If it was a "new" process it could very well have been more expensive. Where's your comparative cost analysis for both materials in 1970? Let's see it.

The question was not the cost of the alternative fireproofing method, but rather the cost of the above choices 1 or 2.

In any case, the fireproofing would have been perfectably adequate for a FIRE. The problem, if you saw the show last night, was that the impact and subsequent explosion blasted the fireproofing right off the steel in the impact zone, so its effectiveness was a moot point. And the other fire-suppression methods failed as well. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. It wasn't just the coating on the steel.

Fireproofing is expected to protect the steel beams for up to 4 hours, though in the WTC attack the fireproofing might not have performed as well.

However, there are people who believe had asbestos been used for all the floors, that the towers would have stayed up longer, and perhaps have survived.

Suggest you read today's article in Newsday (www.newsday.com) about the collapse of the WTC, as they discuss fireproofing.

1. Encase the steel beams in concrete (much too expensive as the buildings were now at the 67th floor level).

That's ridiculous. It wasn't too expensive, it was IMPOSSIBLE. They would have had to take the 67 floors down and start over. You can't suddenly add tons of concrete to the top of the structure, the weight is one of the main factors in the design of any building.

Encasing the beams in concrete would also have affected the stability of the building in terms of the main stress the designers were planning for--the wind. The towers were designed to sway, and anyone who's visited them knows they definitely did. That's so the very tall buildings won't topple over in a hurricane. Make the structure more rigid and you've put it in danger. Again, the building would have had to be completely redesigned from scratch. It would have to be built differently to accomodate the differences in weight and flexibility

Asbestos being banned was out of the Port Authority's control. The fireproofing eventually used was up to code, and you have provided no evidence that its use was a cost-cutting measure, or that it saved them any money at all.

The question was not the cost of the alternative fireproofing method, but rather the cost of the above choices 1 or 2.

I have just shown you that there was no "Choice 1", unless you really think there was a choice to tear down perfectly good buildings at that point and start all over again. In other words, to waste the millions of dollars that had already been spent.

Your claim was that the towers were cheaply built. Stop trying to dance away from what you said, it won't erase your first post from this thread. In fact I'll post it again:

WTC collapsed because the towers were built "on the cheap". When the construction crews were prohibited from spraying asbestos to insulate the steel columns (see: New York Times, April 28, 1970, p. 83), the towers should have been built to a shorter height, around 70 stories.

Do I have to point out that the "cheapest" solution of all would have been to stop building right where they were when asbestos was banned? Think of the money they could have saved. Yet you said the towers fell because "they were built on the cheap", even though you provided no proof at all to back that up.

As for your suggestion to read the Newsday article, I have two suggestions for you:

1. Put in a link to it, for crying out loud, you've been online long enough to know a little basic HTML.

2. Re-read it yourself, because you're wrong again. They don't really "discuss" fireproofing, they merely mention it as one of several factors contributing to a fire hot enough to bring the buildings down--but the cause of that was the planes.

Now, tell me again in detail why the towers collapsed because they were cheaply built. Don't tell me again about the fireproofing, because the buildings would also have stayed up longer if the sprinkler system hadn't been torn out by the planes. I only want to know about how they cut corners to save money and ended up with cheaply-constructed buildings, because that was your claim. If you can't provide that information, or cannot admit finally that you were wrong, then kindly shut up.

That's ridiculous. It wasn't too expensive, it was IMPOSSIBLE. They would have had to take the 67 floors down and start over. You can't suddenly add tons of concrete to the top of the structure, the weight is one of the main factors in the design of any building.

Agreed!

So the choices were stop building at the 67th floor level or "invent" a new fireproofing technique.

. Re-read it yourself, because you're wrong again. They don't really "discuss" fireproofing, they merely mention it as one of several factors contributing to a fire hot enough to bring the buildings down--but the cause of that was the planes.

Yes the cause were the planes - no one is debating that.

"they merely mention it (fireproofing) as one of several factors contributing to a fire hot enough to bring the buildings down" - one of several factors, there you go.

The bottom-line is that once the builders were prevented from fireproofing with asbestos, and since concrete fireproofing was no longer feasible (building was now at 67th floor level), the WTC should have been topped out at the 67th floor level, as there was not another vialble fireproofing technique that could perform to standards.

However to make the WTC project profiable, the towers had to be built over 100 stories.

I only want to know about how they cut corners to save money and ended up with cheaply-constructed buildings, because that was your claim. If you can't provide that information, or cannot admit finally that you were wrong, then kindly shut up.

I dont know how familiar you are with Tuco-bad, but he will never do that.

He has been shown to be woefully wrong many times on this board (under his current name and others), yet he will never admit his errors.

He just plows ahead, lies about his previous statements, changes the subject, attempts to reframe his argument, and obfuscates to the point that you just get bored with engaging him on the point any further.

So the choices were stop building at the 67th floor level or "invent" a new fireproofing technique. Is innovation a bad thing? When you run into difficulty, should you just throw your hands up and say never mind? The fireproofing they "invented" would have worked fine under any normal circumstances, but guess what, fully fueled jumbo jets intentionally plowing into the buildings at full speed was anything but normal. The buildings were fine, the blame rests with the terrorists.

The bottom-line is that once the builders were prevented from fireproofing with asbestos, and since concrete fireproofing was no longer feasible (building was now at 67th floor level), the WTC should have been topped out at the 67th floor level, as there was not another vialble fireproofing technique that could perform to standards.

The bottom line is that you still haven't explained how the builders took the cheap way out by instead continuing to build the additional 43 stories onto each tower. I won't bother to ask where you got the information that the fireproofing was not viable or did not perform to every 1970 standard (which did not include being rammed by a plane, and asbestos was never tested in such a way either, to my knowledge). You are clearly incapable of answering a direct question.

However to make the WTC project profiable, the towers had to be built over 100 stories.

You really don't know much, do you? Those towers were a white elephant for years, and as far as I know they never did reach full occupancy. Saving nearly half the cost of construction by topping them out at 67 floors would have made them almost instantly profitable.

Now, since you refuse to elaborate on the "cheap construction" of the World Trade Center, you're hereby invited again to shut the f#ck up. I won't respond to any more posts from you unless they are a detailed and sourced explanation of the CHEAP CONSTRUCTION of those Towers.

Got it? I sure hope so; an amoeba would have understood the question by now.

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